Legacy
by nimmieamee
Summary: Minific. What the old man with the twinkling eyes left behind.


The old man with the long, long beard, curious and out-of-date robes, and twinkling eyes lived at the school for a time (traded in a glorious Ministry career to do so, forty years or so in) but even in those days kept a house with no stairs and endless guest rooms.

It was a house full of those curious things a brilliant life gathers up over the years: the relics of ancient pranks and inside jokes, frames with the portraits quite passed on, ancient textbooks with no real use but some arcane significance to their owner. There were maps of the strange places he'd seen, foreign cities and forgotten caves, and miniature sketches of crime scenes one might never solve, puzzle stories for his guests to stumble on. There were letters from terribly clever friends who counted out the hairs on invisible beasts, from friends who'd swum in fluorescent lakes to reach deadly tombs, from friends who tore apart the government and built it back up again.

There were the last possessions of Flamel, which came to him by a strange pattern of inheritances. There was a lock of red hair. Several, in fact. There was a battered suitcase stamped with some heroic name, and an elf-head, which he had not wanted, but the old elf had insisted on him having. There was an old broomstick which would not work. A first edition Scamander. A copy of _Hogwarts: A History_. A scale from a snake long dead, collected in Brazil. A chocolate frog card once given to him on a train.

He was not housing these things, so much, but the stories in them. He did not think some would have much significance to others, but to him they charted out a collection of perfect and imperfect moments, and so he kept them. When he made a will, he assigned some in the expected fashion. He placed a sword here (legally his, but in reality anyone's, and at least Headmaster Longbottom would keep it safe and use it well), and he split a vial of memories there (your namesakes; stop looking at me like that; you two always knew you were going to get this in the will) and a cloak here (to the eldest child of the eldest child, as tradition demanded).

But the bulk of it he gave away in strange and unexpected ways. To people who he'd met abroad, and the young trainees who'd taught him Muggle forensic science. To his wife's favorite teammate's daughter. To people who'd crept into his offices by knocking first, or else tapping the gargoyle politely, realizing that ringing bells or shouting passwords might disturb old ears. To everyone he'd met, over the years, who had brought color and magic into his world, and dragged him further away from the cupboard beneath the stairs.

To his favorite rebellious Gryffindor student he gave a map, with his and Teddy Lupin's blessings. "I'm sure you can find a way to improve the charmswork here. Your dad was charming his sketches to roar by the time he hit second year."

To his grand-niece's magical girl guide group, who were petitioning for the rights of magical creatures, he gave a detailed account of the Forbidden Forest and a curious pink umbrella. He was sure they would find a use for both. They did for the map, but the umbrella merely kept off rain. Hagrid's wand shards had been buried with him, reassembled as though to make up for an old injustice.

To an overseas Auror team refining extraordinary spells to stave off Darkness, the old man sent a swiveling eye which revealed secrets to the bearer. Courage was universal. It did not reside in the United Kingdom alone.

To Narcissa, daughter of Scorpius, who'd fallen in love with a Muggle-born against her great-grandfather's wishes, he sent a great quantity of potions equipment to use with her beloved and some notes on his mother's first magical friend, as a kind of cautionary tale.

To the cleverest and most beautiful witch at Beauxbatons he sent a Veela-hair wand, which had been entrusted to him with instructions to do just this. It was heavy with spells to detect foul intentions and foolish assumptions, the master work of a witch with two lovely daughters and an equally beautiful son.

To Ollivander's protege, she who was this era's most wondrous wandmaker, he bequeathed the fateful matching Phoenix feather. Not for any particular reason. Just because he knew she alone would recognize it, and because he had no need for such double-edged power where he was going.

To a young Muggle-born, eleven and struggling to fit in, to learn magical ways and fashions and ideas, he sent _Hogwarts: A History_, and also an account of the cleverest witch he'd ever known. One did not have to fit in, if one remembered to be brave and clever and a good friend. One did not _have_ to compromise with the magical world. One could shatter it and build it back up, better than before.

Each of these, and in fact everything else he left behind, he understood might bring hope and joy into someone else's story. These gifts were not so much meant to pass on his legacy or any old rot like that. They were not meant to subsume and consume others, to drive a piece of him into every corner. Often he gave them away anonymously and trusted that each gift would go on its way, spark some clever mind into weaving out a new journey for each, a new story. These brought life, not death.

They were, in a sense, his anti-horcruxes.

And, having parceled them out, Harry took his glasses off, cast a twinkling eye at his granddaughter standing just out of sight in the hall, arguing with her cousins (there was a story there, too), and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he went to look for Tom beneath the bench. Just to see him one last time.

He'd be leaving this platform behind, but what a marvelous platform it was, what activity on it!

A whole world with many moments left to recount. Endless stories.

* * *

originally posted on my tumblr, livesandliesofwizards.


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